NL, my understanding is that you are correct. The quotes offered by metmom precede the Reformation; at the time they were written “the Church was synonymous with Christianity”. The anaethemas would have been for those who rejected Christianity per se.
As you post, NL, our present and abiding Catechism of the Catholic Church makes no statement of anaethema to those who profess Christian faith but who are not members of the Catholic Church.
It’s good to keep things factual and in context.
Nice thing about traditions of men is that they are so easy to amend, or change, or weasel out of.
The position of the Catholic Church for centuries has been that salvation is through it and it alone. The double speak that they engaged in during Vatican II was only to try to appear to say that salvation is not just through the Catholic church all the while still adhering to that doctrine. Vatican II never really came out and said that salvation could be gained through other churches. They just tried to gloss over their true position.
Simply recognizing that there can be good found in other churches or religions does not equate to acknowledging that salvation is possible through them. The attitude of most of the die hard Catholics on this forum alone demonstrates that the teaching and thinking that salvation through the Catholic Church alone is not dead otherwise, there would be no comments about Protestants being heretics.